Con Man
by ThatClutzsarahh
Summary: He knows how to play people. He also knows when he's being played.


**so this is definitely a story filled with spoilers for 3.02. I'm pretty sure you've already seen it, but incase you haven't, i'm warning you right now. **

**Summary: Peter knows. The truth, Olivia.**

**Warnings: nothing really**

**Spoilers: 3.02**

**Disclaimer: No inFRINGEment intended**

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Before he met Olivia, the description of his job was very simple. He was hired to fool people. That's how he made his money. He would travel the world and lie to people in order to make money. Money was the language everyone spoke. And he was good at it too, this conning people out of money to something that is completely ridiculous and worthless. He was smart too. He knew when it was time to bail and when he was in too deep. Nothing fooled him. No one fooled him.

Olivia Dunham was the only person that he wasn't able to read. She was somehow able to fog up everything. She was able to fog his vision up just enough to make him unable to read her. He couldn't read her bluffs, her lies or even her truths. She was like a novel that was too hard for him, but he wanted to get to know her, to learn her tricks and secrets. And so he did.

He could memorize and analyze her every movement, his Olivia. When she was upset her eyes would ice over, turning from soft emerald green to dark jade and she'd twist up one corner of her mouth. When she's happy (as he's only seen once or twice) her eyes would be warm and inviting and she'd beam this immaculate smile that'd make him feel warm inside as well. In the rare moments he'd see sadness, it'd make his own heart break. The rarest moments were fear. Once he'd seen it, once in the whole time he'd known her.

He knew his Olivia well. The way she stood, walked, talked. He knew the smiles she gave Ella and how it irked her when Rachel called him and the jealousy in her eyes. He knew they way she'd never admit aloud what she felt, but her face read like an open book. She'd never admit defeat aloud because she was tough. She'd never show pain. But the most important thing was that she never ever cried in front of anyone. She was never scared. She never admitted it aloud either.

Her first slip up was at the bar. He looked as if he wasn't paying attention as he downed the drinks, but in truth, he's learned to watch when he looks like he's not. She smiles at him as he downs the drinks and behind the shot glasses, his eyes narrow at her. Something was off, completely and utterly strange. When she expressed an interest in music he could really tell there was something wrong. Her eyes lit up like he'd never seen before and it made him uneasy. For a second he stared into the eyes of someone, something, he'd never seen before, before watching cracks build walls up again and explaining away from the slip.

He's learned long ago that if you know you're being played and the player doesn't know you know, that you should keep going with the con, juice it out until there is nothing left. If it had been his Olivia, the real Olivia, he'd stopped the train tracks long ago and told her what was happening. But this woman, this imposter just made him so angry that he knew the only way to truly expose her and break her down was to play her game until she can't play it anymore. She made him hate her with a burning passion, and that wasn't an emotion Olivia, his Olivia would have ever invoked in him.

Her slips would go unnoticed if he weren't quite so brilliant. She was good, he'd give her that, but he was better, much better. After that night in the bar, after she suggested to go against her boss, and her bad joke about kidnapping he knew there was something wrong. Her suggestion to dance and excuse about herself made him realize how played he really was. Her tone was off. Her walk was off. Everything seemed off about her. She was too positive. She talked too much. He looked at her every chance he could, watching everything. It was when she admitted she was scared did he really understand what was off.

She was the wrong Olivia.

There was panic in her eyes and distraction on her mind. Peter knew it instantly, the moment she crawled into his lap and starting kissing her, he knew. He put the puzzle pieces together perfectly, fitting them into the puzzle where they belonged. When her lips crashed down on his but her eyes were opened and sharp, he could see it in them, this Olivia was from the other side. That's why her eyes narrowed when he made the comment about red heads and blondes and why now she was staring over his shoulder as she kissed him. But he knew she didn't know because she was kissing him without abandon, and he returned it fully, playing into her.

Everything she did from then on was wrong. Letting him go into the subway, wrong. Falling back to listen to Broyles, wrong. She was just wrong. It started to irk him, to bother him. She was like an itch that he just couldn't scratch, a bug under his skin that flittered away under his touch. There was no way he could get rid of the feeling that everything was so off. He watched her reaction as he brilliantly volunteered himself to go off into the tunnel. If it were her Olivia, she'd never have even considered the possibility of that. But Peter watched as she hid what she was thinking behind stone cold emotionless eyes. She was wrong.

Peter used to be known for his ability to read people. He used to be known for being the best player and con man in the business. But Olivia, his Olivia, not the fake one, was the only woman to ever fog his mind up enough to make him second guess himself. But this Olivia read like a book, a poorly written one at that. He felt like she was a horrible copy of his own woman. She fooled everyone else and he wasn't sure how. Her jokes were wrong, her eye color, wrong, and most importantly, her whole persona was wrong. Peter played many people for many years. He knew when he was being played. But he wasn't being fooled anymore. She could fool everyone else.

But Peter Bishop was a worldwide con man, from Arabia to Boston, he ran cons in every corner in between. He knew how to spot the players. And he played right back.

At least for now.

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reviews?


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